Grange Insurance has announced that Ryan Michel (pictured, left) will become the company's next chief executive officer effective March 1, 2027, succeeding John Ammendola (pictured, right), who is retiring after 12 years in the role and 16 years with the company overall.
Ammendola's broader P&C insurance career spans nearly four decades.
Marnette Perry, chair of Grange Mutual Holding Company's board, credited Ammendola with steering the mutual insurer through a difficult stretch while growing the business.
"John has been instrumental in propelling our transformation journey and ensuring the organization's ability to serve our policyholders well into the future. An enduring testament to John's leadership, we have navigated difficult challenges like the global pandemic, record inflation and seismic industry disruptions while growing profitably, further diversifying our business, and consistently maintaining our A.M. Best 'A' (Excellent) rating," Perry said.
Ammendola's tenure has a well-documented origin point. He became president and CEO in early 2015 after joining Grange in 2010, inheriting what he himself described at the time as an 80-year-old company with a culture that was "disciplined, but has been very conservative." He set out to modernize Grange's technology and operating culture in parallel, launching a mobile-friendly website, a mobile app, an easier-to-use customer portal, and an early integration with Amazon's Alexa Voice Service, while pushing the organization to embrace faster, more iterative decision-making.
That transformation strategy has continued through Grange's most recent public reporting: the company's 2025 annual report cited profitable growth, continued digital transformation and sustained community investment as its core themes, and Grange currently reports approximately $1.53 billion in annual revenue and $3.32 billion in total assets, operating across 13 states through a network of more than 4,000 independent agents.
Perry framed Michel's appointment around his most recent two years leading Grange's property and casualty operations as chief P&C officer, and his prior track record running an entire insurance operation independently.
"Ryan is an experienced CEO, having led Allstate Canada prior to joining Grange. During that time, he demonstrated his ability to lead an organization that invests in its people, agent partners, and community, while achieving exceptional business results," Perry said.
Insurance Business first reported on Michel's arrival at Grange in early 2025, when he joined as the company's newly created chief property and casualty officer following more than two decades at Allstate, including serving as president of Allstate Business Insurance, which carried roughly $1 billion in commercial premium, and 11 years in Canada, first as chief risk officer and then as president and CEO of the Allstate Canada group of companies.
Under his leadership there, Allstate Canada grew premium 50% to more than $2.4 billion while maintaining industry-leading profitability across multiple distribution channels. Michel handed the Allstate Canada CEO role to London Bradley in 2022 to return to the US as president of Allstate Business Insurance, before later joining Trusted Resource Underwriters as president and chief underwriting officer ahead of his move to Grange.
Since joining Grange, Michel has been actively building out the company's commercial lines leadership. Insurance Business has reported that he recruited Christine Conte, a veteran of Farmers Insurance and Allstate, and brought on Marohn, a nearly 35-year commercial lines veteran from Hanover Insurance and CNA, both moves he described as critical to Grange's commercial growth strategy, suggesting the leadership bench supporting him is already well established heading into his CEO tenure.
For the more than 4,000 independent agents distributing Grange's personal and commercial lines products, the year-and-a-half runway between this announcement and Michel's official start date gives the company an unusually long transition window compared with many CEO successions.
Furthermore, Michel's two years already spent as Grange's chief P&C officer, actively hiring and building out commercial leadership, means agents are gaining a leader who has been directly responsible for underwriting and growth strategy rather than an entirely external hire learning the business from scratch.
Michel's specific track record growing Allstate Canada's independent agency channel profitably suggests continuity, rather than disruption, in how Grange approaches its agent relationships under new leadership.
